Project
by Baroness Emma
Summary: While at the Academy, a cadet becomes the subject of a project. Romance-ish. Not slash.
1. Question

**A quick but important fic that fits in between chapters Eight and Ten of "The Tides of Vulcan". It can stand on its own, however.  
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**Enjoy!**

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><p><em><span>Project<span>:_

_1. (noun) A specific task of investigation, especially in scholarship. _

_2. (verb) To produce a clear impression of one's thoughts or personality to an audience; To communicate clearly and forcefully. _

_3. (psychology) To ascribe one's own feelings, thoughts, or attitudes to others. _

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><p><strong>Question<strong>

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><p>There's something about him. Even the ones who don't like him - even the ones who openly hate him - even they admit that. He seems to inspire in people all the different emotions he claims to have entirely erased from himself.<p>

No one is indifferent to him.

Odd, since indifference is perhaps the strongest impression anyone can get out of him.

He's been here two years, just like me, but unlike me - and unlike every other cadet at the Academy - he has taken such an accelerated course of study that he has earned two full-fledged degrees in those two years, and he's working on a third. He has everyone wondering, why is he even here? A young man like that, who _earned_ an invitation to the VSA, for galaxy's sake, and on _scholastic merit_, yet. Why would he turn down something like that - something all of us would die to achieve - and come here? Here where he has to arrange his own pace and curriculum because literally no one can keep up with him? He's going to walk away from Starfleet Academy with at least four PHD's, and unless I'm greatly mistaken, the most thoroughly earned commission any graduate has ever had. He'll probably go right to Commander too. No mucking about as a Lieutenant, no, not a chance. I'm not jealous. . . but I wonder. There's just _something_ about him. "Gifted" or even "genius" doesn't seem to define it. "Alien" comes closer, but he's far to human-like in appearance for instant dismissal as simply a non-human type intelligence. What on Terra _is_ it that brings him here?

He always sits in one corner of the cafeteria. One chair set at an otherwise empty table. No one has dared approach him since about the third day he sat there, and a rather smitten girl tried to flirt her way into that corner. I don't know the whole story, but the rumors that got started that day took about six months to die down. And there have been other rumors too, less than kindly ones, and all of them mysterious. Even now, years later, there are people who whisper to each other whenever he walks into the room. I wonder why he even bothers to come, since he never eats the replicated crud that passes for food here, and I have never heard of anyone else even trying to study in the cafeteria during full occupancy. Yet, he always does. I don't think a single person here has ever seen him without a book in his hand. The few of us who have ever heard him speak have only heard him say strangely bland, off-putting things, and he obviously dislikes crowds.

So why is he here?

I'm in the middle of the room, with as clear a view of everyone and everything as I can get. I've been eating my lunches at this table for almost two years. My friends all sit here, we talk and eat and leave in a regular, easy way, comfortable in the normalness of the routine, but all at once I am tired of it. I'm tired of being here, and oh, so very tired of that one, almost empty table, with a who-knows-what sitting at it. He might be of alien extraction, he might be capable of absorbing the same amount of information in a single year that it would take one of the very best of us four years to achieve, but he's _young_ too, for crying out loud, he's just a _boy_. Suddenly, it bothers me that we've been treating him like we have, it worries me that he lets us, and. . . . well, darn me for a space sick idiot, but I'm going to DO something about it.

Besides. There's _something_ about him. . . .

I pick up my PADD, and quickly dial up my favorite novel. I leave my purse and other books with my best friend, asking her to take them back to our dorm room when she's done eating. We have a free period after lunch today, and she nods her head casually, not interrupting her other conversation. She's assuming I'm just off to do some random studying, or to meet up with one of my guyfriends for a sweet little make-out session.

Any other day, she'd be right.

Today, I'm not entirely sure I'm going to _survive_ my free period. The alien boy across the room has a reputation for incredibly cutting speeches. Especially when he's approached by someone he doesn't know, or want to know.

But, somehow, the _right _thing to do has occurred to me. Strange. . . inter-species ethics were never my strong point.

I walk around the room a bit, scanning for an empty chair. When I find one, I snatch it up, not even asking if it's taken or not. No one calls after me, so I must have got away with it. In about ten strides I've plunked the chair down at _his_ table, and two seconds later I'm sitting there, about five feet away from him, and furiously reading from my PADD. I don't look up, or acknowledge him in any way. I don't know if he notices me at all. . .

Suddenly a dizzying wave of. . . something. . . washes over my head. _Why am I here? I don't really want to be here, do I? Who do I think I am? Wait. . . who am I? I am deeply afraid, chokingly shy, and yet I want, I __**need**__ to stay right where I am. The cafeteria fades from my consciousness, I am alone in a crowd of noises, surrounded yet isolated - it is the only state of being that I have ever experienced, and thus the only one I understand. I must be here, like this, or I will come to hate this Academy, and I cannot do that. I need to be here. . . and I always do what I __**must **__do. What is required is always necessary. What is necessary is always logical. Why has my isolation been invaded again? Oh, how I hate human __**pranks**__. . ._ The feelings are so scorchingly alien to me, I _never_ feel like this, and then, just as abruptly, I feel an echoing draft of silence inside my brain, like I've stepped away from a great windy forest only to look down into a vast dark canyon. A tear drops onto the smooth surface of my PADD. I blink, and all at once I am in the cafeteria again. I look up. He's gone.

_What the hell was that?_


	2. Research

**Research**

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><p>The days are one unbroken chain here at the Academy. Oh, we have weekends off, of course, and the occasional holiday, but one day is pretty much like the next, and after a month or two no one wonders why there are so many schedules for everything. If we didn't have everything regimented like we do, we'd all forget what day of the week it is.<p>

It's been three weeks and four days since I bearded the lion in its den - or, to be less dramatic, sat at _his_ table during lunch one day - and, astonishingly, I've done it again, four times, since then. I have no idea what has suddenly made me so brave, but it's paying off. . . after a fashion.

People are noticing that I'm sitting with him. Even though we don't speak, and he's never so much as looked me in the face, my being there does something to the crowd around us.

When I'm there, most of the whispering that used to happen when he entered a room stops. I'm amazed. I don't know if I can take credit, I'm just glad that something good is happening.

But whatever that _thing_ was that happened the first time has not happened again.

My friends wonder what is up with me, but I have a reputation for acting strangely from time to time - I've always gotten strange whims on occasion - so they all put up with it. And _he's_ putting up with it too. I'm relieved. I'm curious. I'm also weirded out.

Each time he seems to endure my presence a little longer than before. The last two times I even managed to focus on my book and not on the fact that I was sitting where I was sitting. I'm sort of getting the feeling that he's sizing me up. For what, I haven't the slightest clue. But I'm too recklessly brave right now to stop, and too interested to care.

Today I once again take my tray over to . . . _our_ . . . table, and sit down to eat while he focuses entirely on whatever he's studying. He stays at the table for the entire hour we have been allotted for lunch. That's not happened before. . . somehow I don't know if I should be worried, encouraged, flattered, insulted, or just plain confused. I've almost decided to settle for the latter when he stands up and walks _toward_ me for a change, slipping a scrap of paper under my lunch tray as he goes by. He still hasn't looked directly at me. I turn and watch him go, then look back at my tray and the scrap of paper.

I admit that I'm scared to look at what it says.

Why does reckless bravery always desert me when I need it most?

But, I'm still deeply curious, and can't stop my hand from picking up the note, or my eyes from reading it.

Then, I discover that my choice of being confused was a good one. It says - "Library, 17:00, south corner of the mezzanine. Please."

Darn it.

I am in _**so**_ way over my head.


	3. Hypothesis

**Hypothesis**

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><p>The Starfleet Central Library is a strange entity of a building. It's part museum, part laboratory, and part academic mecca. If you weren't TOLD it was a library, you could be forgiven for missing that fact altogether. The ground floor is mostly laboratory, with the librarians acting more like active scientists than Keepers Of Books. There are computer banks everywhere, of course, and you can get data files on almost any subject, but the people running the computers all pretty much care more about the state of the electronics they are in charge of, than any information the computers contain. Quite a few breakthroughs in data storage have come from the SCL, though, so no one worries.<p>

The second floor is all museum. Row upon row of ancient texts sit inside row upon row transparent aluminum boxes, each one with rigid climate control. Few know how to read them. Even fewer want to. No one is allowed to touch them. Ever.

The third floor belongs entirely to the sacred realms of academe. Large conference rooms with the grandest decor possible stand as testaments to human intelligence and culture. Or so I've heard. I've never been invited beyond the mezzanine.

Because between the museum and Starfleet intelligentsia's Holy of Holies there is a half-floor - a loft of a sorts - grand in itself, but blessedly casual, stuffed with beautiful, solid furniture which is itself often piled to bursting with info-cards for our PADDs, hardcopy books of all types, and a generous assortment of electronics essential for the active Starfleet student.

It isn't just a favorite place for studying, it's a favorite place for _meeting_. And not _that_ type of meeting, either. The mezzanine is _ours_ - the students' - nearly all of us feel at home there, no matter where we're from.

It's a perfectly logical place to meet him, actually. . .

Of course.

_Of course_. . .

I mentally berate myself for being confused at his choice of meeting place, for here we can be both private and perfectly, honestly, completely open. Whatever is going on, it's not something he wants to hide, at least. Logical.

There's a table in the south corner of "The Mezz", as we call it, a table surrounded by tall, broad bookcases at the end of a labyrinthine study area. It's not an easy table to get at, but neither is it often empty. The most serious studiers go there, and again, I shouldn't be surprised that this is where he wanted to meet.

But I am. I am surprised because he _asked_. To _meet_. _Me_. He asked to meet me.

_Why?_

I can't think of a single good reason.

I got here a little early, but I don't have to wait long - he's exactly on time, like he usually is for everything.

He sits down. I am already seated. He doesn't look at me. He doesn't speak. I don't either.

This is going to be bad.

Suddenly, I feel uncomfortable, but not like I usually do. I feel _more_ than I usually do. I feel so outcast, so hurt, so. . . alien.

_This is a bad idea. There is only room for injury, and none for edification. How can there be? Yet, there is a chance for something. Something. . . anything. Else why. . . Why? This is a bad idea. . ._

I feel sick.

Is this what _he's_ feeling - like, right now?

My mind is screaming _- What is going on?_

I'm not just confused, I'm downright terrified.

His face tightens, like he hears me, or something loud and painful at least, and at last he makes some sort of move in my direction. He places a fist gently on the tabletop, close to my arm. His knuckles are pointing at me, and somehow he wordlessly invites me to ape his gesture. I do so, tentatively, still too confused to look him in the face, but schoolgirlishly brave enough to try anything, at this point, if it means I get to understand.

Very, very slowly, the back of his hand approaches my fist, until the skin of his knuckles just barely touches mine.

_I am sorry for your discomfort._

What? He _didn't_ just speak. Did he?

_Yes, I did._

I jump back, as though an arc of static electricity had just burned between our hands, breaking the slight contact like a cobweb.

"WHAT," I hiss, furiously, "Do you _think_ you are doing, buster?"

He doesn't answer at once, but he does raise his eyes, and make an attempt to look me in the face. It is the first time he has done so. I look at him, then, really, for the first time. And he's _such_ a boy. He doesn't look _innocent_, not exactly, just new, lost, young. . . alien.

The kind of alien we have all felt like, at one time or another.

His look does not make me pity him, but somehow I suddenly feel a compassion for him I never knew he could inspire. He gestures with his still loosely closed fist.

He whispers, without emotion, "Please."

I've had enough.

"No," I say, as I rise to go, "This is _creepy_, mister, and if you think I'm going to. . ."

His hand reaches out, holding my shoulder, not hard, but firmly.

"Please," he says again, a little louder than before, "Let me explain."

His hand is fever-hot on my shoulder. For some reason I suddenly think about Bedouins, how their women wear richly embroidered veils and how pale the sand can be in the moonlight. . .

I push his hand away, angrier than I've ever been before.

"Get _OUT_ of my mind, cadet - I could have you reported for. . ."

"Are you not going to let me explain?" His voice is so heartbreakingly small that my fear retreats for a minute.

"Make it fast - and use _words_," I insist.

"Very well," his tone is more confident than it was a moment ago, but he is still seated and I am standing. He looks up at me, not imploring, but open, so very, very open. It was like looking down into a dark black canyon. . .

"I projected into your mind, not because I forced my will on you. . ." he pauses, uncertain of my reaction, not of his own words, "but because you invited me in. Unconsciously." For the briefest of moments his control falters and his eyebrows draw together and his eyes tighten just a tiny bit, "You wanted to be near me. . . as no one has done since I came here. . . so my mind reacted as it would to another empath." He drops his glance. "That is all."

"Oh?" I say, packing sarcasm, uncertainty, shock, wonder, and just a little bit of pride into that one word.

"Yes," he says, as utterly emotionless as before. He places a fist back on the table. "Please."

"You. . . we, I mean. . . I. . . but how?" I ramble on, so uncertain of any of this experience.

He whispers, so low his voice is almost husky, "Please. It will be easier. For us both. I will not. . ." he stops. We both know what he will not do.

Okay.

I might be able to live with this.

I sit back down and make a fist on the table again.

Very slowly, he touches his knuckles to mine.

_I am sorry for your discomfort._

_You don't think this. . . connection. . . is __**odd **__in any way?_

_Yes, it is. But for my people it is common._

_It's. . . almost too much for me - I can FEEL you. Inside my head. . . It's very disconcerting._

_I apologize._

_Accepted, but __**what **__do you want of me?_

_This._

_Just this? The knuckles thing?_

_This connection, yes._

_Why?_

_We must practice if we are to become friends._

_You want to become friends? _

_I do not see why we should not._

I pull my knuckles away and close my mind off as best as I can. I need to think and I don't want him listening in.

Friends? He's. . . . well, he is who he is. He doesn't make friends. And I'm not sure I can just be friends with him. But, dear God, I want to try. I've never wanted to try this strongly before. He's. . . not perfect, but just about close enough. There are several obvious reasons why he has had to be a stone-faced robot impersonator who says cold, cutting things to women. And if they all knew he could see thoughts, share minds. . . he'd have had about triple the problem he did have.

Hey, a girl has her fantasies, and I can assure you, a man who can read your mind is a universal one.

But, he wants a simple friendship. He wants it because I was decent to him, and no one else has been, for two interminable years.

_Years._

How can I say no?

I reach out a little, touching his hand again.

_Friends? _

I'm not sure who thinks that word, him or me or both of us at once, but the answer comes from both of us, I'm certain of that.

_Yes._

For some reason I feel like I've just jumped into the deep end of the ocean.

And I have no _idea_ how to swim. . . .


	4. Experiment

**Experiment**

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><p><em>How is this possible?<em>

Two months after making the oddest friend I think I'll ever make, I'm in my dorm room, just having awakened from a nap. He's in his house, a mile away on the whole other side the city. And I think I just heard him in my mind while I was dreaming.

_Wake up, my friend, please, wake up._

The dream bursts into frigid shards; I can't remember what it was about, now. I'm not angry, exactly, just annoyed, groggy, and still really unused to this empath thing.

_How is this possible?_ I make my mind ask.

_We are friends. _

I never actually hear words when we do this. I just understand the meaning of things from his mental touch. It's empathy, not telepathy. It's _freaking _weird. But I signed up for it, so I'm getting used to it, like it or not.

_You have one of the strangest definitions of friendship I've ever seen, Sir Thinks-a-lot. What's next? LSD and a game of strip golf?_

_Certainly not._

I laugh, and he obviously can hear me. _Okay, why did you wake me up?_

_I wish to continue our experiment._

_Our friendship is an experiment?_

_Isn't everything in life?_

_I suppose. Okay. What are we doing?_

_Come over and see._

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><p>It's late afternoon when I come around to his house. The gold light warms the air and trees and flowers all about. It's a lovely day to be outdoors, and all the tourists are out in force. In fact, since he lives on one of the most "scenic" streets in San Francisco, there are two or three tourists coming down the street right now. At least I don't look entirely out of place when I stop to look at the house before going in. It's an old Victorian antique of a place, very human, fancy on the outside, inefficient on the inside, and utterly darling to everyone who sees it. It attracts attention by being cheerful and completely adorable. I want to take a holo of it, or paint it in watercolors.<p>

I can't think of a place more opposite to the occupant; I wonder why he lives here.

I knock gently on the door, and he opens it quickly, almost before I can drop my hand to my side. He opens the door wide, inviting me in with a reserved bow. I'm about to tell him that I would prefer to sit outdoors (I still feel more comfortable using speech to communicate)when he holds a finger up to his lips, and gestures for me to follow him. He isn't even thinking at me, and I wonder why.

He directs me to one of the back windows and then I see. I know why he woke me up and is now acting so strangely. He wanted to surprise me.

He told me days ago that he's been cultivating a large _d'lechu_ from his homeworld, and that he had almost despaired of it flowering in the non-arid environment of coastal California, but right now he is directing my gaze to a beautifully proportioned succulent plant, with three deep purple spears of flowers springing from the nest of green. And even better, I know why he wanted me to be quiet - all his windows and doors are open, and making any noise might startle the hoard of hummingbirds who have come to fight over my friend's offworld nectar delicacy.

The back of his hand brushes mine. He's so happy. I've never felt him really happy before. He's appreciative of the plant - I _think_ his grandmother gave it to him - and he finds the tiny birds fighting and feeding and dancing to be a most satisfying scene. But mostly, this is a thing he likes, and he gets to share it. I smile at him. He doesn't smile back, but he's glad I'm here. I can tell.

We watch his backyard for a while longer, and then he offers me some tea, and we end up in the kitchen.

We still don't talk. I don't think he likes talking. Maybe he's afraid that the person he is _inside_ his head will come out if he talks too much. As a pretty smart person (even if I do say so myself) who never was all that appreciated by my family or hometown, I guess I can understand that. When the people around you don't understand you, it puts a drag on the efficacy of the communication.

He offers a closed fist to me on the tabletop, and once again our knuckles touch. I wonder what it is that makes him protect his palms so rigorously. I've tried to touch his hand, or even his fingers, but he always stops me. Oh well, I'll find out one of these days.

His consciousness just sits there, close to mine but as unobtrusive as can be. Either of us could reach out, but we don't. The company is enough, for now.


	5. Records

**Records**

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><p><em>I'm warning you, mister, I'm going to be nosy today.<em>

_I am warned._

_Why do you live in that frou-frou house on such a public street right smack dab in the middle of tourist-trap country when you ought to have some asetic ultra-modern scrap of an apartment somewhere no one's ever heard of?_

_That is quite an irrelevant question. . ._

_I did warn you. . ._

We're back in The Mezz, in a quiet little nook, both of us ostensibly studying, but actually carrying on some very interesting silent discussions. The sides of our hands are touching between us on the bench, and I can't help but think that our relationship brings new meaning to the term "under the table".

_You warned me you were going to be nosy. In my experience "nosy" pertains to religious choices, sexual orientation, and mouthwash preferences._

_Mouthwash?_

_Do not 98% of guests look in their host's medicine cabinet?_

_Point taken, but you haven't answered the question._

I hear him sigh mentally. The feeling I get with it is a strange one, and I don't try to analyze it.

_The house belongs to my mother._

_Ohhh._

_I spent time there as a child, and my mother thought that it would be a far more comfortable place of residence than the Academy's quarters._

_I wouldn't have thought that physical comfort mattered very much to someone like you._

_It does not. But my mother does matter. . ._

Such a simple explanation. And yet the feelings I could feel were still very, _very_ odd. I decide to change the subject.

_Do you mind if I ask you something?_

His mind makes a wry smirk that I'd love to actually see on his face. _Did you not just do so?_

_You know what I mean._

_Yes._

_Why are you here?_

_You of all people, my friend, do not need the act of genetic combination explained to you._

I mentally punch him in the shoulder.

_Why are you __**here**__ - you're smart and good and. . . and YOU. You have connections and money and - _

_And a human mother._

Oh.

OHHHHH.

All at once the strange feelings don't seem so strange. She must be an extraordinary woman, to give up her home and her species for a people who can't be bothered to understand her son. Not to mention that they all have a sense she doesn't possess.

_It must be so difficult, being on a world full of psi-null people like us._

_You are not psi-null._

_We aren't?_

_No, you are psi-neutral._

_There's a difference?_

_A very great one. If you were null, you could not hear me, nor could I project to you when we are not touching. But you are neutral, which means that were you given the tools, you could be as much of an empath as my whole race._

_So, humans are. . ._

_As fully developed psionically as Vulcans are, yes. Humans simply lack the tools to enter that part of their minds without outside assistance._

_Interesting._

_Indeed. Shall I show you?_

_Sure._

The Mezz is pretty empty right now, and no one is near us or in our line of sight, so he turns to face me, lifts my hand, and begins to place my fingertips on his face in a very precise pattern.

It's the first time he's _actually_ touched me, and the first time I've ever gotten close to really touching him. It's not just electric, it's like a mental caress every time we make contact. We're talking fingertips and wrists and not in _any_ kind of lascivious context, and yet I feel more touched than the last time I met with a boyfriend for a whole weekend.

_Whoa there, tiger,_ I say, meaning it completely, _ease up there. I can tell you __**want **__this, but let the poor psi-neutral get used to this touching thing, okay?_

His presence immediately tones down a notch.

_I will sit next to you, as we have done before, and you can explore all you wish._

_I don't understand._

_You will._

The next few seconds. . . minutes? . . . are a tangled blur, as . . . something. . . happens _outside_ my mind, and _inside_ my mind, until I seem to be floating between the two of us, and he's floating there too.

_When you are ready. . ._

I have no idea what that means, but I push, I guess, or rather I imagine myself walking along a bridge of pale peach stone, the sky is too dark a blue and the hot wind blankets me. The landscape opens up as I walk, to a salt flats, white and forbidding, with mirages and great, floating mountains of imaginary clouds. I am underground, in a cave full of the sound of dripping water, a comforting sound, and not at all sinister. A row of stalactites turn somehow into the forms of men I have never seen before, but their faces are stern, forbidding, cold. A cool puff of air blows them away, and I am inside a house, decorated with tapestries woven with strange flowing glyphs. There is a table and three people eat in silence. I turn around and an old, old woman tends to an exquisite garden. She trims a bush with extreme care, all the while reciting a poem I cannot understand. My fist goes forward and suddenly I am dancing, fighting and training all at once. There is a blur of faces, a glimpse of many happenings, and suddenly I am in my own mind again, awake and aware.

He is almost smiling.

_What just happened?_

_You initiated a mind meld._

_I did that?_

_Yes, you did. And you did quite well for an amateur._ His mind _does_ smile at me.

Okay, this is going down in my book as the number one most intimate thing I've ever done with a man. . .

He pulls away, breaking skin contact for the first time in I don't know how many minutes. I almost collapse, exhausted.

_You're too much, mister._

_I have been told so before._

Our study hour is over, and I need to go take a nap.

_I'll see you tomorrow, Mr. Mind-meld, sir._ I mentally salute him.

And then. . . I flee.

I'm not scared of drowning anymore, because it's already happened.


	6. Analysis

**Analysis**

* * *

><p>There are new rumors circulating about him. I'm not surprised. They're about us. Well, him and me. We aren't actually an "us" - not like they mean, anyway.<p>

At least we aren't to him.

To him, we're friends. I've asked him more than once, and in all the times I've touched his mind that's all there is in there - friendship.

That's great and all, but I don't understand. After all that's passed between us, after all I've tried to understand, he's content with the way things are, and I'm. . . I'm in over my head. I was in over my head the first day I thought to go sit next to him. I realize that now.

But he doesn't understand. Not surprising, given that I'm his first human friend.

He's _such _a boy. _And_ such an alien. And. . . Whatever he needs, _who_ever he needs, I just can't be it anymore. Because I'm not a child, and I'm not alien, and I need different things than he does.

It's been a lovely three months since we started being whatever it is we are, but now it's clear to me that I wasn't thinking about the future when I impulsively did the right thing that day in the cafeteria.

I got my offworld summons this morning.

And, for all I love him, I love my career more. I'm not going to give up the chance to study a whole new world just so I can make doe-eyes at a college boy who probably isn't capable of loving me back.

I've touched his mind. He's complex, interesting, and he has emotions, oh yes, but not once have I felt love there. Not directed at me. Not at all.

I look a the summons before me, and I don't know what I'm going to tell him.

I'm pretty sure I'm never going to forgive myself.


	7. Result

**Result**

* * *

><p>"Of course you must go. It is a great opportunity."<p>

"But. . ."

"You must not think I would hinder your career in any way. I am not that sort of man, my friend."

The scene has been nothing of what I expected. He is more understanding than I thought he would be, more open and easily convinced. Somehow this makes it even harder.

He won't miss me.

I'm just a friend.

Whatever we have had, he will remember.

And that's all he needs from me.

"What are you thinking?" He asks, quite dispassionately.

I'm a little bit stunned. "You're _asking_? _Now_ of all times you don't just reach out and _take_ whatever from my mind that you want and then pour yourself into the gap you've made?" I'm being petulant and I know it.

He knows it too.

"You know that is not how things were."

Were.

He's already dismissed me. Us.

We were never an us. I have to remember that.

"No, things were much more convenient than that, weren't they?" I say, trying to tamp down on my feelings. "You had a friend, and I had the one man on campus no one else could get - thrilling for both of us, wasn't it?" I'm _trying_ to rile him up.

And then, at last, I feel a frustration beyond my own. A frustration so odd I know it's coming from him.

_It is beyond me, my friend, to do this now. It is. . . too much. I am too much, you are too much, and this. . . this that we have, it is too much._

_Yes, it is._

_I never explained to you how much psi-abilities can complicate a friendship._

_No, but I figured it out on my own._

_You are a most intelligent woman._

* * *

><p>He manages to wangle it so that he is the one operating the transporter when I beam out to my ship. I'm grateful. This is the best way for him to say goodbye - by being useful to me and at the same time making sure I'm safe.<p>

I bring my one valise to the step of the transporter, then turn to him. I don't want to say anything. I want him to mind-talk to me.

I know he won't.

He comes over and stands by me, not looking, not touching, not even thinking at me, but suddenly his arm comes out and grasps my elbow. His head bends over and he kisses my shoulder. It's all over in a second, without a single bit of skin contact. Then he meets my eyes for the briefest of seconds, and then he turns back to the transporter console.

After so long learning his mind, I know that I know what he's thinking. He's wondering if there is any universe, anywhere, or some time in history, where we would have been an "us". He's wondering if there's an alternate reality somewhere where he isn't him, and I'm not me, and no obstacles stand in our way.

He's wondering if he's ever said "I love you" in any of them.

"It's okay," I say, not entirely meaning it, "I can love you enough for both of us."

And now he knows I'm just being silly. He knows that there's no substitute for real, bonded affection. He knows that emotion flows both ways, or it doesn't flow at all. He knows that my love is and must always be one-sided, that he can't ever use me as a crutch, or he'd crush us both.

He knows he's not ready for love. And he's certainly not ready for what I'd want him to be.

"It would be better if you forgot me," he says, seriously, "You are going far away, and the connection between us will be greatly strained. I. . ." For once in his life he trails off.

"I understand." I say, quickly covering the silence, not letting him get close to being embarrassed, "If I really loved you, I wouldn't be going, is that what you were trying to say?"

"No." His voice is softer than usual. I wonder if he'll take the out I've given him.

He does.

"Well, then, my friend, I wish you every success," he says, giving me that famous hand salute that I can never make my fingers do, "Live long and prosper."

"Live long and prosper," I mumble in return, to cover my senseless tears. I turn to the transporter pad, climbing up and standing very still.

He nods to me, then for a moment his eyes meet mine, and he says, very softly, "Goodbye, Leila."

I close my eyes and project, as I have done so often with him, _Goodbye, Spock._

Then there is a short burst of tingling light, and I am gone from him.

I know we will never meet again.


End file.
